<B>Spirits lift as ballet pauses for thought</B> <BR>Reviewed by Jill Sykes for The Sydney Morning Herald<P><BR>Stephen Baynes has created a memorable work for the Australian Ballet in Requiem, danced to the serene, comforting Requiem by Gabriel Faure. Dance and music share a dream-like quality of life's seemingly intractable problems being brought down to size by the bigger picture, in which continuity triumphs. Life goes on.<P>Six couples and a pivotal older character, Valrene Tweedie, weave their associations and memories within a closed set of black-dot-topped white walls that emphasise the small communities in which people are tossed together over the years of their lives.<P><A HREF="http://www.smh.com.au/news/0111/09/entertainment/entertain13.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

I saw Requiem last week and I can't say it's extremely innovative. I got tired of Too many arabesques and felt the older performer, Valerine Tweedie, was given far too much running around the stage. It's not easy for aged dancers to run so why make them do so? The piece was entrancing because the dancers are looking beautiful at the moment. Baynes' is also very musical but I feel he needs to get more adventurous in his choreography.

Valrene Tweedie was born in 1925. She left Australia in 1940 with Colonel de Basil's Original Ballet Russe and had a career in the Americas until c. 1952 when she returned to Australia where she directed the National Theatre Ballet in Melbourne for a few years. She then went on to teach in Sydney for many years. Prior to appearing in Stephen Baynes's Requiem she alternated with Dame Margaret Scott as Clara the Elder in Graeme Murphy's version of Nutcracker for the Australian Ballet.

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